Debunking the One-in-Five Divorces Linked to Facebook Stat

Did you hear the one about the research studies that cited that Facebook is causing 20% of today’s divorces? Press releases headlined it. The news media ran stories about it. “Experts” validated it. People repeated it around the water cooler and their social networks. And everyone talked about it like it was a real stat. Unfortunately, the joke is on all of us.

So how did we buy into the fastest growing, most widespread urban myth in the world?

It started in late 2009, gained traction over the next several months, spread like a viral YouTube video throughout 2010, and finally, after being repeated for 14 months, it took on its most recent form declaring: “Facebook linked to one in five divorces in the United States.”

How did the whole thing get started?

Apparently Mark Keenan, the founder and managing director of an online divorce firm in the UK (Divorce-Online) had “heard from my staff that there were a lot of people saying they had found out things about their partners on Facebook and I decided to see how prevalent it was.”

Keenan said, “I was really surprised to see that 20 percent of all the petitions contained references to Facebook.”

How rigorous was the research?

According to the press release, “Research for Divorce-Online was carried out on 20th December 2009 with a sample size of 5,000 divorce petitions.” In fact, they “scanned their divorce petition database for the use of the word Facebook, and found 989 instances of the word in over 5,000 divorce petitions sampled.”

And what about Divorce-Online? They claimed to have helped over 60,000 couples achieve an amicable divorce since starting in 1999. This is roughly 3.5 percent of the approximate 1.66 million divorces in that time period. Their primary clients are those who want “an uncontested divorce without needing the services of a solicitor.” Our best guess is that these are younger couples with few if any real assets or property, and couples without children…a far cry from reflecting the general population.

Where did the 1-in-5 stat come from?

The combination of research-sounding buzz phrases like “sample size,” “sampled,” and “scanned” with dates and figures must have made the methodology sound legit.
On the same day the press release hit the faxes and inboxes, The Telegraph looks to be the first news source to bite. Their headline proclaimed that“Facebook is fuelling divorce, research claims.”But it was the sub-heading that said it all: “Facebook is being cited in almost one in five of online divorce petitions, lawyers have claimed. “ With several other UK pubs sharing the story and tens of thousands of people recommending the Telegraph article to their Facebook networks (in the pre-Like days)…within a day, the sub-heading morphed into the main headline:

From there, numerous international news sites carried the news of the danger Facebook posed to marriages in their own languages. Countless Tweets shared the dire news among the millions of Twitter users. By New Year’s, the one-in-five figure had become ingrained in the public conscience.

The AAML reported on two oft-cited (and seemingly credible) survey results. First, “81% of the nation’s top divorce attorneys say they have seen an increase in the number of cases using social networking evidence during the past five years.” Second, “Facebook is the primary source of this type of evidence according to 66% of the AAML respondents, while MySpace follows with 15%, Twitter at 5%, and other choices listed by 14%.” Who reported on Facebook-related divorce stories in 2010?

Virtually everyone! This was one of the hottest topics of the year on news programs, talk radio, in publications and on websites and blogs! Here’s just a sampling of the coverage:

Things are going to get a bit confusing here real soon, so it is important to remember that this was not a survey of all divorce attorneys, but AAML members only. Also, talking with a spokesperson from the AAML, they have never reported that Facebook was a cause of any number of divorces.

Another press release adds to the mass confusion

With two different sources from the legal field citing statistics related to Facebook and divorces, it’s understandable that the general public could mix up the details surrounding the numbers.

How a prestigious university could send out a press release that mixes up who said what and what was said is really confusing. The statement never backs up the headline, and the content of the release completely botches the AAML statistics.

At the request of an AAML representative, Loyola University fixed their release twice (see the new cleaned up version as of March 8, 2011). But a week is forever in the media world, and the headline from the original release had spread to all corners of the world.

The urban myth gets fanned into a flame

How the media could run with the headline from Loyola’s release without fact-checking it is downright baffling.

But many did. Cable news channels, newspapers, radio and TV news programs, and many blogs and websites have reported on the new “research” findings. And the few “facts” that were cited got bungled up…BIG TIME!

But no one really reads the stories, right? The headlines tell us everything we need to know, which is the main motivator for people share the “news” through Twitter and Facebook.

Is there any truth to the story at all?

Here is what we DO know:

The Divorce-Online press release, while technically accurate, smells like they overstated their claims and tried to legitimize their “research findings” as something more than an administrative assistant thumbing through their clients’ files and counting the number of times the word Facebook shows up regardless of its context.

The AAML press release accurately communicates the findings from its members.

Loyola University Medical Center had three press releases. The first was an epic fail (which caused all the recent confusion). The second was better, but still bad. The third finally got it right. (Send them every divorce lawyer joke you know…even though they’re not attorneys).

Every release accomplished its goal…get noticed and get written about. As the media stories go, any headline about divorce attorneys using Facebook for evidence gathering is probably fairly accurate. Anything with “1 in 5 divorces” or “20% of divorces” in the headline should be passed over.

Here is what we know that we don’t know:

There is no valid research, study, survey or collection of data that accurately reveals how many divorces have been caused by Facebook.

No AAML study exists that states the percentage or number of divorces attributed to Facebook.

There is no researcher that has counted the number of marriages negatively impacted by Facebook.

There is no valid statistic to support the statement that “one-in five divorces” are caused by Facebook. Not in America, Not in the UK. Not anywhere.

Why does it matter?

Facebook is revolutionizing how we do relationships. It affects all of our relationships including: marriages, families, dating relationships, parents and their kids, grandparents and grand kids, friendships, and the list goes on. Social media is not going away anytime soon.

Learning the etiquette of online communities, how to better relationships through social networks, and how to balance face-time with time on Facebook are must-have skills for 21st Century relationships to thrive.

A stat that states that 20% of marriages fail due to this technology scares some from joining the social network, helps some justify prematurely divorcing instead of working toward reconciliation, and in general, gives Facebook an undeserved and unjustified negative image.

We have heard a lot of horror stories from spouses and couples. Some married people are using Facebook to live out their midlife crisis. Some married Facebookers are being confronted with a surge of unexpected feelings and emotions due to friending and interacting with an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend. Some are crossing the line by having an emotional affair, and an unfortunate number of marriages have ended due to a spouse finding someone else through Facebook.

Couples need to talk face-to-face and set up boundaries to keep their online time and relationships from acting as cyber-threats to their marriage.

(Go to SocialMediaCouple.com for large selection of articles on what you can do to protect your marriage on Facebook and how to strengthen your relationships with Facebook. Check out Facebook and Your Marriage for everything a married Facebooker needs to know about surviving and thriving in the world’s most popular online community.)

While Facebook-related marriage issues are a new phenomenon, until someone has done some real research on it, trying to attach a number, figure or percentage to it is only adding fuel to an urban myth that is already blazing out of control.

………………………………………………………………………
K. Jason and Kelli Krafsky (a.k.a. The Social Media Couple) are nationally-recognized specialists in social media and relationships. They write and speak to help people balance technology and their relationships, use common sense and set healthy guard rails for their marriages, families and relationships in this social media age.They are the authors of Facebook and Your Marriage (2010), the first book ever written on how the social network affects marriages and what couples can do about it. Find their articles, tools and tips at SocialMediaCouple.com, YourTango.com and other sites. The Krafskys are regularly interviewed by and referenced in the media for their practical input and advice for couples and parents. The Krafskys live in the foothills of Washington’s Cascade Mountains with their four children.

The Social Media Couple (a.k.a. K. Jason and Kelli Krafsky) are nationally-recognized specialists in social media and relationships. They write and speak to help people balance technology and their relationships, use common sense and set healthy guard rails for their marriages, families and relationships in this social media age. They are the authors of Facebook and Your Marriage (2010), have co-written many articles on the topic and are often sought out by media on techlationship-related issues. They live in the Greater Seattle area with their four kids. View all posts by The Social Media Couple »

I am amazed that this interesting little press release has as you say snowballed. The database query was very simple. We simply wanted to see how many times the WORD ” facebook” appeared in our petitions. We scanned the last 5,000 petitions we had processed and found it appeared in 1in 20. This was the word “facebook”. As facebook has become the primary means of communciation for generation x this was hardly unsurprising.

Somewhere along the line someone in the media said it was in the USA that these figures had come from, a case of chinese whispers thereafter.

Of course facebook does not cause divorce, people do, but as it is now so widely used as a comunication tool, it is going to feature more and more as evidence, in the same way secret letters did in the 19th and 20th century.

Mark – thanks for commenting and for bringing your perspective to this issue. It is quite amazing how the “20% of divorces linked to Facebook” myth evolved so quickly. For clarification in your comment, did you mean to say “we scanned the last 5,000 petitions we had processed and found it appeared in” 1 in 5? Not 1 in 20 based off the 989 out of 5,000 petitions surveyed? ~Jason & Kelli (The Social Media Couple)

I found your article through your comment on huffingtonpost. Thanks for giving a clear explanation of the real stats! I think it’s important that people realize that even in the AAML release, they are only stating how many divorce proceedings MENTION Facebook, not how many attribute the reason for divorce to Facebook. This is an important distinction that I think is lost on a lot of people.

Admiring the persistence you put into your blog and in depth information you present. It’s awesome to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same outdated rehashed material. Wonderful read! I’ve saved your site and I’m including your RSS feeds to my Google account.

your findingsmight be correct and the press release overstating. but I am not sure if we can say that facebook and co have positively impacted our interpersonal relationsships. Same as with the press release which simplifies the case, your words are simplified too. An extrovert person might clearly benefit from facebook, twitter and co, but someone on the opposite side of the scale, who had problems voicing his/her feelings before facebook era – I think social media are a danger of withdrawing this person even further from real life. … the point is, when does it become addictive and when are people addicted and what means addiction in the context of social media.

I have not read your book, but it sounds like you have a positive approach, which I think is not right here.

Hey! Someone in my Myspace group shared this website with us so
I came to check it out. I’m definitely loving the information.
I’m book-marking and will be tweeting this to my followers!
Excellent blog and outstanding design and style.

Trackbacks

[...] It started in late 2009, gained traction over the next several months, spread like a viral YouTube video throughout 2010, and finally, after being repeated for 14 months, it took on its most recent form declaring: “Facebook linked to one in five divorces in the United States.” (Full story) [...]

[...] It's still going. I particularly like this story, which half-way through even references the fact that the website has covered another AAML release (hint: it's the same one) some time previously. The good news is that the Wall Street Journal's Carl Bialik has picked up the myth on his Numbers Guy blog, here, and in print. Another good round-up of the nonsense and its sources has been posted here. [...]

[...] Jason and Kelli Krafsky, co-authors of “Facebook and Your Marriage” have written a great article debunking this statistic. In short, not only is the number wrong, but the number doesn’t even [...]

[...] Jason and Kelli Krafsky, co-authors of “Facebook and Your Marriage” have written a great article debunking this statistic. In short, not only is the number wrong, but the number doesn’t even [...]

[...] team Jason and Kelli Krafsky, co-authors of “Facebook and Your Marriage” have written a great article debunking this statistic. In short, not only is the number wrong, but the number doesn’t even [...]

[...] team Jason and Kelli Krafsky, co-authors of “Facebook and Your Marriage” have written a great article debunking this statistic. In short, not only is the number wrong, but the number doesn’t even [...]

[...] team Jason and Kelli Krafsky, co-authors of “Facebook and Your Marriage” have written a great article debunking this statistic. In short, not only is the number wrong, but the number doesn’t even [...]

[...] team Jason and Kelli Krafsky, co-authors of “Facebook and Your Marriage” have written a great article debunking this statistic. In short, not only is the number wrong, but the number doesn’t even [...]

[...] team Jason and Kelli Krafsky, co-authors of “Facebook and Your Marriage” have written a great article debunking this statistic. In short, not only is the number wrong, but the number doesn’t even [...]

[...] team Jason and Kelli Krafsky, co-authors of "Facebook and Your Marriage" have written a great article debunking this statistic. In short, not only is the number wrong, but the number doesn't even [...]

[...] team Jason and Kelli Krafsky, co-authors of “Facebook and Your Marriage” have written a great article debunking this statistic. In short, not only is the number wrong, but the number doesn’t even [...]

[...] team Jason and Kelli Krafsky, co-authors of “Facebook and Your Marriage” have written a great article debunking this statistic. In short, not only is the number wrong, but the number doesn’t even [...]

[...] team Jason and Kelli Krafsky, co-authors of “Facebook and Your Marriage” have written a great article debunking this statistic. In short, not only is the number wrong, but the number doesn’t even [...]

[...] to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. And though the often repeated statistic that Facebook is responsible for 1 in 5 divorces is somewhat misleading, K. Jason and Kelli Krafsky — the husband and wife team who co-wrote [...]

The Social Media Couple

K. Jason and Kelli Krafsky are nationally-recognized specialists in social media and relationships.

Their writings and speaking help people balance technology and their relationships, use common sense, and set healthy guard rails for their marriages, families, and relationships in this social media age.

Co-authors of the first book written on the topic, Facebook and Your Marriage, Jason and Kelli are sought out by media to provide unique insights and commentary on social media and relationship-related issues. They have been featured on numerous TV, radio, and podcast shows; interviewed for articles in national publications, online news sites and local newspapers; and contributed editorials to publications, including The New York Times.